Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) Page 304

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FOR three days they traveled fast through sparse woodland, well away from the road so that they would not be spotted. They rarely lost sight of the blood-knife banner. When they had a clear view down onto the road, it was easy to mark the progress of the high priest because of the startling headdress he wore, his feathers so lustrous that they seemed shot through with rainbows. Now and again they had to detour wide around a village and its vineyards and fields, careful not to be seen. The first time, Alain asked why they did not stop.

“Surely the folk here would aid us, if they all hate the Cursed Ones so much.”

Maklos pointed at the people working in the fields. It took a moment for Alain to realize that humans and Cursed Ones worked side by side, recognizably different only because of their complexions and because the Cursed Ones were, in general, shorter than their comrades. Some of the humans even wore their hair up in that distinctive topknot.

“They are slaves,” said Agalleos.

“They are dogs, licking the feet of our enemies,” retorted Maklos. He spat to show his disgust.

“They seem harmonious enough to me. Look. Do you see them laughing, there? See how that woman—she’s as human as you or I—stops to touch that man, as she might her own brother—”

“He is no man.” Maklos spat again. “He is a Cursed One. May he rot—”

“Hush,” said Agalleos. “My friend,” he said to Alain, “you are a foreigner and do not understand what you see. Slaves may smile and bow, hoping to be spared the whip. Magic may twist a person’s mind until she sees colors that are not there. Now, come. We cannot bide here or we’ll lose track of our party.”

Maybe so. There was so much he did not understand. Here in these lands even the houses were different, built of pale bricks and roofed with wooden shingles. But as they journeyed on he saw other villages where humans and Cursed Ones worked and lived together. The only places where the Cursed Ones lived separately was at the small forts, spaced a day’s march apart, where the high priest and his escort sheltered each night.

That third night as they bedded down in the pine woods within sight of earthworks, Agalleos could see that the matter still troubled him. “You have not walked in those villages, friend Alain. You have not walked in the ruins the Cursed Ones made of the town where I lived as a boy. We follow the high priest and his escort, yet can you say you have looked into his eyes, have you seen his expression? We are too far away to know any of those people except by the color of their cloaks. That does not tell us what lies inside their hearts.”

They lit no fire that night because the terrain had forced them close in to the road, well within sight of the low embankment and the wooden watchtower. Maklos took the first watch. Much later, Agalleos woke Alain for the final watch and lay down next to Maklos. Rage and Sorrow both slept; better to let them lie. They had come a long way without complaint, good comrades that they were. None better.

Alain leaned against the trunk of a pine, taking in the night sounds: an owl hooted, insects chirped, Maklos snorted softly in his sleep and turned over. After a while he moved cautiously to the edge.

The woodland had been cut back about an arrow’s shot on all sides of the little fort, an astounding amount of work. Sentry fires burned on either side of the gate, illuminating the glitter of rectangular shields set up along the embankment like a palisade. There was no moon, but the stars burned piercingly, so bright that for a moment he had an odd desire to weep with joy at their beauty.

A single figure passed the limit of the sentry fires and, lighting its way with a lamp, moved slowly into the clearing toward Alain’s hiding place. The man swung the lamp from side to side, searching low along the ground. Twice, he crouched and, knife glinting in the lamplight, gathered plants best reaped on a moonless night. Alain dared not stir. Something about the figure seemed familiar to him, a haunting ache, a teasing memory, but he could not say what. Darkness shadowed the man’s face, but as he came closer, Alain could see that he wore odd garb, not much more than a loincloth tied in a knot and draped loosely at the hips and, over his bare chest, a hip-length white cloak. Beaded sheaths covered his forearms and calves. Was that a feather stuck in his hair, bobbing in and out of sight as the lamplight caught its color?

The man crouched to investigate a spray of leaves among the ragged grass, lifting the lamp up at such an angle that all at once Alain saw his features boldly outlined.

It was the shadow prince, but not dressed as a prince in martial array and certainly not a shadow.

This man he had seen and exchanged words with in the ruins above Lavas Holding while an unseen shadow fort burned down around them. This man had led a column of refugees past Thiadbold’s cohort of Lions after Alain had negotiated a hasty truce, if there could in truth be any true intercourse between shades and people.